The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Complete First Season DVD Review

The Doctor's classic companion on her own and doing just fine, thank you.

The triumphant return of Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) to Doctor Who was one of those incredibly satisfying moments for fans of the series, and clearly just as popular with new viewers as well, firmly cementing the connections between the new show and the old and demonstrating a brilliant balance of nostalgia and heartfelt character development. Appearing in the 2006 series-two episode "School Reunion" and teaming up with the Doctor (David Tennant), Rose (Billie Piper) and Mickey (Noel Clarke) to stop an alien incursion at a local school, the most beloved companion in Who history made short work of the bad guys with the help of the current team and her sidekick K-9 (voiced by John Leeson), another classic series alum. She also proved that you don't have to be a teen or 20-something to battle evil and look stylish while doing it. But could she combat cosmic enemies -- and hold the interest of young viewers -- on a weekly basis?

That was what new Who mastermind and Sarah Jane Adventures creator Russell T. Davies intended to find out. In conjunction with the CBBC, and drawing on his early years writing children's television (arguably Doctor Who itself has the imaginative spirit of the best of children's TV too), Davies devised a new vehicle for his favorite companion to strut her stuff solo. It had been tried before, but 1981's K-9 and Company -- the one-shot spin-off in which Sarah Jane was first paired with K-9 (they had never met in Doctor Who proper) -- wasn't enough of a success to launch a series. Now, however, the time was right.

"Invasion of the Bane," the one-hour pilot, is a magical piece of work with a sense of wonder and whimsy about it that is just infectious. Sarah Jane joins forces with girl-next-door Maria Jackson (Yasmin Paige) and genetically engineered Luke (Tommy Knight) to stop an alien zombie-like invasion via the soft drink Bubbleshock. Sure, the plot is familiar, and Davies seems to have a thing for villainous, short-haired, prissy women in tight-tailored suits, but that's OK. Sladen embraces the opportunity to give her character a new lease on life with such gusto that you can't help but be carried along. The one weak link (sorry, but a critic has to be able to criticize young actors as well as old, or what's the point?) is the girl playing Kelsey (Porsha Lawrence Mavour) as the most annoying tagalong in recent TV history. K-9 does feature, but only in a minimal capacity, which is probably a good thing. All in all it's a solid debut for the show.

"Revenge of the Slitheen" starts the series itself off with the first of five stories composed of two half-hour episodes, and guess who's missing? Kelsey has been replaced by Clyde (Daniel Anthony), a much better addition to the team with a great personality. But ugh -- why oh why are the awful, unfunny Slitheen back as the adversary? Actually, it's no surprise. When they first debuted in series one of Doctor Who in 2005, they instantly appealed to children across the UK, so why wouldn't they be back? Sigh.

"Eye of the Gorgon" gets things back on track with evil nuns, while "Warriors of the Kudlak" plays off the somewhat overused sci-fi cliche of a game being used as an alien military recruitment method. Perhaps the most Who-like story is the wonderfully dark "Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?" In fact, it's darker than the most recent Who itself and introduces a brilliant threat in the form of the Trickster, a creature in love with creating chaos and with designs not just on Sarah but the Doctor as well. He's the classic show's Black Guardian in all but name, although visually he strongly resembles the Guardian's lackey, the Shadow.

The series wraps up with an epic showdown between Sarah, her friends and -- brace yourselves -- the Slitheen in "The Lost Boy," and it's all over far too quickly. Kudos also go to Joseph Millson as Maria's recently separated father Alan, and Juliet Cowan in the unenviable role of the grating Chrissie, Maria's mother.

Fortunately a second series is starting to air as this review is being written, and as with all things from this production team, the future looks bright. With luck, Sarah Jane's adventures have only just begun.